Preparing for a career in the post-digital world

Following the release of her report on Women and STEM last fall, TD Bank Group Chief Economist Beata Caranci received an outpouring of messages from people sharing their personal stories. A common theme of fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) emerged from parents anxious to know how best to prepare their children for careers in a post-digital world. Caranci tackles these questions in a new follow-up report.

Caranci found that parent-FOMO can be sorted into two categories. In the first, parents lack sufficient knowledge about STEM resources that are available. To be sure, there are many programs but the range of options can be overwhelming and costly. In the second category are parents who are concerned that even a university education won't help their children secure jobs due to the rise of technology that can displace large swaths of highly educated workers, like artificial intelligence.

To achieve success in a post-digital world, Caranci says, individuals and companies will need to demonstrate agility, embrace life-long learning and understand career progression as movement along a lattice, rather than up a ladder.

"As technological change intensifies, so will the pressure on firms of all sizes to re-tool and focus on continual learning environments," said Beata Caranci, Chief Economist, TD Bank Group. "The transformation of workplace skills happens in real time, and speed will matter."

According to Caranci, in order to adapt, deeper partnerships will likely form between private-public educational curriculums, and employee-employer life-long learning journeys.

"This offers an opportunity for governments to revisit guidelines and incentives for current corporate training funding models to positively encourage firms of all sizes to do more heavy lifting on workforce reskilling."

For more information, click here for the full report on Parent-FOMO in a Post-digital World.